The ditopic ligands 3,5-dimethyl-pyrazolate-4-carboxylate,-Me 2 pzCO 2 -, and 4-(3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrazol-4yl)benzoate, -Me 2 pzC 6 H 4 CO 2 -, combine a pyrazolate and carboxylate functionality in axial orientation and lead to porous cobalt or zinc azolate-carboxylate frameworks that have the same cubic pcu-a topology and {M 4 (μ 4 -O)} nodes (M = Co, Zn) as MOF-5 and other IRMOFs. The microporous networks [M 4 (μ 4 -O)(Me 2 pzCO 2 ) 3 ] (M = Co, Zn) with the short linker exhibit a solvent-induced gate effect, evidenced by gas desorption hysteresis due to small pore apertures of 2.8 Å diameter together with small amounts of high-boiling solvent remaining in the activated samples. For [Co 4 (μ 4 -O)(Me 2 pzCO 2 ) 3 ], the low-pressure H 2 storage capacity (1.7 wt%, 1 bar , 77 K) is higher than for MOF-5, and the CO 2 uptake of 20.8 wt% puts it among the top MOFs for low-pressure CO 2 sorption even though the BET surface is less than 1000 m 2 g −1 . The analysis of the magnetic properties of [Co 4 (μ 4 -O)(Me 2 pzCO 2 ) 3 ] takes into account the distribution of tetrahedra resulting from the disorder of the pyrazolate-carboxylate linker. An antiferromagnetic coupling observed for [Co 4 (μ 4 -O)(Me 2 pzCO 2 ) 3 ] arises from the interactions of the cobalt(II) ions through the combined μ 4 -O + syn-syn carboxylate and μ 4 -O + pyrazolate bridges.